She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.

We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,

A pavement of pearl.

Singing, "Here came a mortal,

But faithless was she.

And alone dwell for ever

The kings of the sea."

But, children, at midnight, When soft the winds blow; When clear falls the moonlight;

When spring-tides are low:

When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom;
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom:
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie;

Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.

We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;

At the church on the hill-side

And then come back down.

Singing, "There dwells a lov'd one,
But cruel is she.

She left lonely for ever

The kings of the sea."

1857 Edition.

3.

ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD.

Life.

Animula, vagula, blandula.

LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.

But this I know, when thou art fled,

Where'er they lay these limbs, this head, No clod so valueless shall be,

As all that then remains of me.

O whither, whither dost thou fly,

Where bend unseen thy trackless course, And in this strange divorce,

Ah tell where I must seek this compound I? To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,

From whence thy essence came,

Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,

Wait, like some spell-bound knight,

Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour, To break thy trance and reassume thy power? Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be? O say what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee?

Life! we've been long together,

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime

Bid me Good morning.

1825 Edition.

YOU'LL love me yet! — and I can tarry

Your love's protracted growing:

June reared that bunch of flowers you carry, From seeds of April's sowing.